Conglomerates, and Marls of Devonshire. 17 
roots which penetrate the marl. But though a joint or a root may 
facilitate, neither of them is essential to, the chromatic phenomenon; 
for the bands just mentioned are as compact and free from 
divisional planes as any other part of the bed. 
The marl, which, with its greenish nodules and specks, differs 
in no respect from that west of the Straight Point, holds unbroken 
possession of the base of the cliff for about a mile and a half east- 
ward ; that is, to within about a quarter of a mile west of Budleigh 
Salterton. Here it suddenly gives place to a bed which is 
altogether without , a parallel in the Triassic deposits of Devonshire. 
It consists almost entirely of pebbles, is about one hundred feet 
thick, rises from the beach at an angle of about 9*^, and ascends 
the cliff diagonally westward until it reaches the summit of West- 
down, the loftiest point on this part of the coast, and which is 
424-5 feet above the mean-tide level. Here its outcrop is a steep 
westerly-sloping scarp, which is continued along and, indeed, forms 
the high ground of Black Hill, Woodbury Common, Aylesbere, 
and Straightway Head, a distance of from nine to ten miles, in a 
direction nearly due north, or, as nearly as possible, that of the 
river Otter, a very few miles eastward. 
The pebbles of which the bed mainly consists are highly- 
polished ellipsoidal fragments of fossiliferous quartzite, varying 
from the size of hazel nuts to that of a man's head. Nothing 
resembling them, either in composition or in fossil contents, occurs 
elsewhere in the Triassic Conglomerates, or in the parent rocks of 
Devonshire ; lithologically and palseontologically they are strangers 
to our county, and their forms and polish show that they have 
travelled long and probably far. Occasionally, pebbles of white 
quartz and other rocks are found embedded ivitkin them. In the 
bed there are also a few fragments of quartz rock, schorl aceous 
rock, lydian stone, and of a remarkable breccia, supposed to be of 
volcanic origin. The interstices between the pebbles are filled 
with sand, but the whole mass is so slightly adherent that it can- 
not be appropriately termed a Conglomerate ; the local name of 
